‘The Corruption Conundrum and other Paradoxes and Dilemmas’ Book Launch Event happened recently at Landmark Book Showroom, Banjara Hills Hyderabad. This book is written by Mr V.Raghunathan who is the author of books like ‘Games Indian Play’ and ‘Don’t Sprint the Marathon’.
I missed the book launch event of ‘Don’t Sprint the Marathon’. I wanted to continue the habit of visiting book launch/reading sessions and didn’t want to miss this opportunity and made it to the event well in time. Interestingly there were many attendees this time and most of them looked very much educated.
The Chief Guest of the event was Mr. Vijay Mahajan, Chairman of Basix. Vijay and Raghu both are elders in the age group of 45-50 but looked very active individuals. I read that Raghu was an academician before he got into writing. I had no clue about the book and was eager to hear from the author himself. In just 5 mins Raghu made it clear to all of us on what the book is all about.
It is about the paradoxes and the dilemmas that we see in life. Raghu sited very good quotes, examples like Zeno’s paradox, Achilles paradox. He looked very much prepared and confident about his subject. He said that the origin of the idea of the book took place from a TV Program which Raghu accidentally bumped into. The paradox that he observed was haunting him and eventually showed him the path that it is a subject worth writing a book.
Raghu was very much supported by Vijay, who played a key role in making this event a grand success. Vijay did create lot of funny moments in the event. He started with saying that he experienced a paradox in the the very point of attending the event. He said that he had to read the last chapter to finish reading the book and he had only one hour left for the event. So if he reads the remaining book for the one hour he cannot be on time for the event and if he is on time for the event he cannot finish reading the book so he cannot review it. This brought the audience into laughter.
Both Raghu and Vijay explained some very good paradoxes which cause lot of confusion and are interesting. Vijay praised Raghu about the coverage of the global melt down and for not only explaining on how it happened but for also suggesting an effective solution. He asked a guy to read out a story about selling monkeys which is a perfect analogy and best explains how the Sub Prime Crisis and eventually the glboal meltdown, recession happenend. This story is very much popular in internet and I had read it long back. Looks like it is a sourced story.
And while explaining the solution, Vijay asked an interesting question to the audience –
There was an analysis that when ever a Senior Pilot was driving an Aeroplane and a Junior was assisting him,in some Countries like India the number of accidents were more and in countries like USA they were less.
Vijay asked us what do you think is the reason for it. There were some answers from our group and nothing made sense. The explanation that Raghu and Vijay shared was quite interesting. They said that in countries like India, the Juniors always fear to caution and speak out when they see their Seniors committing mistakes. This power gap causes lot of problems. Where as in Western Countries the culture is different and a Junior never hesitates to speak out even if his Senior is committing mistake.
Raghu has devised a comparison between this power gap ratio and another ratio about wealth and derived a solution to solve the problem of recession and to avoid it in future.
The climax of the event was interesting. Vijay said that once when Raghu invited him for launch, he visited Raghu’s home. Then he was surprised to see various locks and he came to know that it was one of the hobbies of Raghu. He said that when Raghu showed him all his collection, Vijay was spellbound.
They brought an old lock from this collection to the event and invited kids to try opening it. Couple of kids tried hard and were partially successful. Finally Raghu showed the exact way of unlocking it and it was thrilling. There were many vital steps to follow or else its impossible to open the lock.
Vijay concluded the session by linking the lock concept to the book and invited us to check the book to unlock such locks in life.
It is one of the funny and well organized events that I have ever attended. Kudos to Raghu and Vijay.
All the very best for Mr V.Raghunathan for his book.